brought up on the land, and of course that is true; as for the
people in the cities, small danger that they would ever be foolish
enough to put up with such a way of living."

He spoke with heat and volubly--a man of the town who talks every
day with his equals, reads the papers, hears public speakers. The
listeners, of a race easily moved by words, were carried away by his
plaints and criticisms; the very real harshness of their lives was
presented in such a new and startling light as to surprise even
themselves.

However Madame Chapdelaine again shook her head. "Do not say such
things as that; there is no happier life in the world than the life
of a farmer who owns good land."

"Not in these parts, Madame Chapdelaine. You are too far north; the
summer is too short; the grain is hardly up before the frosts come.
Each time that I return from the States, and see the tiny wooden
houses lost in this wilderness-so far from one another that they
seem frightened at being alone-and the woods hemming you in on every
side ... By Heaven! I lose heart for you, I who live here no
longer, and I ask myself how it comes about that all you folk did
not long ago seek a kinder climate where you would find everything
that makes for comfort, where you could go out for a walk in the
winter-time without being in fear of death ..."

Without being in fear of death! Maria shuddered as the thought
swiftly awoke of those dark secrets hidden beneath the ever-lasting
green and white of the forest. Lorenzo Surprenant was right in what
he had been saying; it was a pitiless ungentle land. The menace